Zhanna Agalakova, former host of the news program Vremya on Channel One, has returned her state awards to Vladimir Putin. She wrote about it on her Facebook page.
Agalakova sent the Order of Friendship and the Medal of the Order «For Services to the Fatherland» to Putin at the Kremlin from France. The journalist attached to the awards the following address:
«Mr. President, under your leadership the country is headed into the abyss. I find your awards unacceptable.»
«I wanted to do it for a long time but did not know how best to do it. Throw them away? Burn them? But that would be disrespectful to the state awards and to the extremely worthy people who had been decorated with these orders and medals. I was not sure that the post office would accept a parcel with such an address. It turned out that anything is possible, even in the days of the new Iron Curtain. The post office was surprised, of course, and immediately started helping me fill out the customs declaration. They promised it would reach its destination in three days,» Agalakova told The Insider.
Agalakova worked for Channel One since 1999. She hosted the daytime and evening newscasts, as well as the programs Vremya and Nochnoe Vremya. From 2005 she worked as Channel One's own correspondent in Paris, from 2013 to 2019 - in New York, after which she returned to Paris again.
Her last report on Channel One came out on February 17, 2022. After February 24, Agalakova condemned the war Putin unleashed against Ukraine and on March 3 she tendered her resignation from Channel One. On March 17, the journalist was officially fired.